Ceramic regenerator wheels for turbine engines have been made for many years by a crimping and wrapping process, such as for example, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,112,184. For some applications, a relatively massive hub is required on the centerline of the wheel. The process developed for the wrapped wheels requires slip casting and firing a hub blank and cementing it into the fired hub with a foaming agent. This is an expensive process because it requires many steps. It also introduces a foreign material into the product, namely, the foam cement, that can have a slightly different thermal expansion than the rest of the wheel.
It would be desirable and an advancement in the art to have a process of fabricating such regenerator wheels that is more economical than the process described above and that produces a product having a strong stable bond and a uniform thermal expansion throughout.
The present invention provides such a process.